Welcome to The Sciku Project – the latest scientific and mathematical discoveries, thoughts and ideas as scientific haiku.
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Uncertainty by John Hawkhead
switching off life support
by John Hawkhead
we cannot know where
an electron is
Due to Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, we cannot know the exact location of an electron at any given time. The principle states that it is impossible to precisely measure the position and momentum of a particle like an electron simultaneously. We can only describe the orbitals or energy levels where an electron is most likely to be found in an atom.
Switching off life support is a difficult decision that allows a patient to die peacefully when curative treatments are no longer effective. It’s a key part of end-of-life care.
Many people believe in an afterlife or a continuation of existence for the mind or soul. There is no proof for such beliefs, but if it were true, we cannot know where or how that continuation might occur.
Sciku previously published in cattails journal April 2022. Editor’s comment from the journal: John Hawkhead takes us on an extraordinary journey. It’s starting point is a bleak one. There is no guidance to the reader about the circumstances of the patient, but we understand there is nothing more that can be done. Following this information comes a phrase which fully captured my imagination. It appears to reference the uncertainty principle, which is fascinating in itself. However, the juxtaposition of this ‘phrase’ with the initial ‘fragment’ set up multiple chains of thought in my mind. There is the ‘death’ of the machine as it is switched off and there is the death of the patient. The cessation of electrical activity within their brain, which we believe is responsible for consciousness. These ideas lead me back to the wording within the ‘phrase’. I picture an adult explaining ideas of death to a child, and the child trying to navigate its way through unfamiliar terrain, perhaps even touching on the nature of a soul and its continuation after death.
Further reading:
‘Where are electrons located within an atom?’, CK-12 Foundation, available: https://www.ck12.org/flexi/physical-science/atomic-nucleus/where-are-electrons-located-within-an-atom/
‘The uncertain location of electrons’, 2013, Zaidan, G. & Morton, C., TED-Ed, YouTube, available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ROHpZ0A70I
Author bio:
John Hawkhead (@haikuhawk.bsky.social) is a writer and artist from the south-west of England. His work has been published globally over the last 25 years, including three books of haiku / senryu: ‘Small Shadows’ and ‘Bone Moon’ (available from Alba Publishing. http://www.albapublishing.com/) and ‘Four Horse Parable’ (available from Nun Prophet Press).
The quasar by Martina Matijević
Quasar beams with might,
by Martina Matijević
The angry black hole awakens—
Who switched on the stars?
Astronomers have identified the brightest and fastest-growing quasar ever observed, which is powered by a supermassive black hole. This black hole is rapidly growing at a rate of one solar mass per day, making it the fastest-growing black hole known. The quasar, located 12 billion light-years away, is over 500 trillion times more luminous than the Sun.
Further reading:
‘Brightest and fastest-growing: Astronomers identify record-breaking quasar’, 2024, ESO, ScienceDaily, available: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/02/240222122324.htm
‘The accretion of a solar mass per day by a 17-billion solar mass black hole’, 2024, Wolf, C. et al., Nature Astronomy, available: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-024-02195-x
Author bio:
Matijević has orbited the Sun 23 times, making her 23 years old in Earth’s timekeeping system. A science enthusiast and poet, her work has appeared in 5-7-5 Haiku Journal, View from Atlantis and Awen. You can discover more of her poetry here: https://tinamatijev.wixsite.com/martina-matijevi
Read another sciku by Matijević here: ‘Supersonic Winds’.
Computer, Remind Me: Which One of Us Is the Human? by Ellen J Craft
daily alarm:
by Ellen J Craft
my AI assistant’s voice
grows more human than mine
This haiku is based on my experience of interacting with an AI virtual assistant for nearly 10 years. At first, the assistant’s voice sounded robotic, and the prosody was nearly non-existent. However, in recent years, I’ve noticed not only does the assistant’s voice contain prosody, but it also contains emotion such as humor and excitement. When I hear the assistant’s response to my half-asleep request to snooze each morning, I get a shiver as I realize that I’m the one who sounds like the robot. This has me questioning not only AI’s boundaries, but also what really defines humanity.
In researching this subject, I learned that as the technology used to make AI virtual assistants (or digital assistants) improves, the voices are indeed becoming more human-sounding. According to Meghan McDonough, this is the final frontier in synthetic speech: replicating not just what we say but how we say it.
In her article, “Artificial Intelligence is Now Shockingly Good at Sounding Human”, McDonough interviews Rupal Patel, who heads a research group at Northeastern University that studies speech prosody. Prosody refers to changes in pitch, loudness, and duration that are used to help convey intent through voice. Patel says, “Sometimes people think of it as the icing on the cake. You have the message, and now it’s how you modulate that message, but I really think it’s the scaffolding that gives meaning to the message itself.”
Further reading:
‘Artificial Intelligence Is Now Shockingly Good at Sounding Human’, 2020, McDonough, M., Scientific American, available: https://www.scientificamerican.com/video/artificial-intelligence-is-now-shockingly-good-at-sounding-human/
‘9 More Realistic AI Voices for Conversations Now Generally Available’, 2024, Ma, M., Azure AI Services Blog, Microsoft, available: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/azure-ai-services-blog/9-more-realistic-ai-voices-for-conversations-now-generally-available/4099471
Author bio:
Ellen J Craft is a former writer/editor and librarian and a current English Language Development instructional assistant at a public school in the Seattle metro area. Her works have been published in haiku journals such as cattails, The Heron’s Nest, Modern Haiku, Pan Haiku Review, and Shadow Pond Journal. You can follow her on Instagram at @ellenjcraft
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